South Dublin County Council, through its libraries and parks department, was delighted to partner with Institute of Technology Tallaght and other community groups to participate in this innovative programme. A range of events were programmed to take place throughout the week. The programme of activities was tailored to involve all age groups including; pre school children and their carers, primary school children and their teachers, teenagers, adult learners and their educators, families, everyone. Events were located in the County Library and in Sean Walshe Memorial Park in Tallaght. Library events ranged from talks and workshops to trails and storytime.
Tallaght Cubed was an interactive photographic exhibition which was held in the County Library throughout the 10 days of Looking at Tallaght through Maths Eyes. The exhibition, which was compiled by Tallaght Photographic Society, looked at views and places of Tallaght through a Maths Eyes lens and members of the public were invited to view and comment on the photographs. The exhibition is now digitised and available to view (link to Tallaght cubed here)
What’s the Story with Maths? This collection of picture books for young children featuring Maths themes and vocabulary was available in all of our libraries. The collection included a short annotated guide (link to pdf here) for parents to take away. We also organised a special storytime using these books for all the family called It all adds up to Storytime.
Maths eyeWalk; The maths eyewalk through Tallaght took people on a guided walk through Tallaght and guiding them through the Triangle Quarter, The Square and other interesting maths sights. The eyewalk is available to download through the library website at http://www.southdublinlibraries.ie/podcasts
EyeMaths Library staff developed a Maths Trail around the Library and children were invited to put on their Maths Eyes (plastic sunglasses did the trick!) and complete the trail. This was available on demand throughout the programme and proved a huge hit with the younger children in particular. Parents were also seen to put on Maths Eyes and help the little ones. The Maths Trail can be viewed here. (link to library maths trail here)
My Child and Project Maths: Audrey Byrne, Regional Development Officer with the Project Maths team gave this presentation to parents of 6th class children on the new Project Maths Curriculum for the Junior Certificate. The talk was well attended and an interesting discussion followed,
Developing Maths Skills in Pre-School Children was a workshop facilitated by Toni Lambe from County Dublin VEC. The workshop was attended by professionals working in the area of pre-school education and focussed on the making and use of Maths Sacks.
Soctastic Math-o-Matix Show was a maths lesson for junior and senior infants that enthralled all involved. Preformed by Little Big Top Theatre Company in the County Library this was maths like you have never seen it. Meg and Peg searched for shapes and socks while the mischievous Pegasaurus did his best to help out; fantastic fun for all.
Family Maths Day: this was held on the Saturday of the programme in the County Library where all the computers in the junior library were tuned in to maths based websites that offered fun ways for children and their parents to practice their maths skills. In addition old fashioned maths board games and the maths trail through the library were also available on demand.
A Question of Water was a hand-on street game (link to street workshop here) held on the same day outside the County Library. The games invited people to test how much they knew about their use of water and to measure and play and get wet! Great fun for all the family.
Maths Trail through the Park: Sean Walsh Park was the venue for this event which invited families to exercise their minds and their bodies. Families had to follow the clues to trail through this lovely park located in the heart of Tallaght. Shapes, spaces, volumes, quantities and concepts – maths are everywhere in the park (link to Sean Walshe maths trail here). There were lots of fun activities for all the family including a duck chase in the stream to measure how fast the stream is flowing.